How to Write the Boston College Essays 2025-2026
Boston College (BC) is a private Catholic Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 by the Society of Jesus, a Catholic religious order, the university has more than 15,000 total students.
BC only requires applicants to write one essay, and most students can choose from four different prompt options. If you are applying to BC’s Human-Centered Engineering major, though, you won’t have the luxury of choosing a prompt and will be required to answer an HCE-specific question.
With Boston College receiving thousands of qualified applicants each year, all with strong test scores and extracurriculars, you will need your essay to stand out and tell a compelling story about yourself to impress admissions officers. No matter which prompt you choose, we’ll explain how you can write a great essay to get into Boston College.
Read these Boston College essay examples to inspire your writing.
Boston College Supplemental Essay Prompts
Prompt: We would like to get a better sense of you. Please respond to one of the following prompts. Applicants to the Human-Centered Engineering major will select the fifth prompt. (400 words)
Option 1: Strong communities are sustained by traditions. Boston College’s annual calendar is marked with both long-standing and newer traditions that help shape our community. Tell us about a meaningful tradition in your family or community. Why is it important to you, and how does it bring people together or strengthen the bonds of those who participate?
Option 2: The late BC theology professor, Father Michael Himes, argued that a university is not a place to which you go, but instead, a “rigorous and sustained conversation about the great questions of human existence, among the widest possible circle of the best possible conversation partners.” Who has been your most meaningful conversation partner, and what profound questions have you considered together
Option 3: In her November 2019 TED Talk, “The Danger of a Single Story,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi warned viewers against assigning people a “single story” through assumptions about their nationality, appearance, or background. Discuss a time when someone defined you by a single story. What challenges did this present, and how did you overcome them?
Option 4: Boston College’s Jesuit mission highlights “the three Be’s”: be attentive, be reflective, be loving – core to Jesuit education (see A Pocket Guide to Jesuit Education). If you could add a fourth “Be,” what would it be and why? How would this new value support your personal development and enrich the BC community?
Option 5 (Human-Centered Engineering (HCE) applicants only): One goal of a Jesuit education is to prepare students to serve the Common Good. Human-Centered Engineering at Boston College integrates technical knowledge, creativity, and a humanistic perspective to address societal challenges and opportunities. What societal problems are important to you, and how will you use your HCE education to solve them?
Option 1
Strong communities are sustained by traditions. Boston College’s annual calendar is marked with both long-standing and newer traditions that help shape our community. Tell us about a meaningful tradition in your family or community. Why is it important to you, and how does it bring people together or strengthen the bonds of those who participate? (400 words)
This is a version of a Diversity essay. Through the lens of a tradition, Boston College wants you to share more about a specific community or aspect of your identity that is meaningful to you.
You have a pretty generous word count to work with, so this should give you ample space to fully describe your tradition, why it’s important to you, and how it contributes to creating community. To go above and beyond, you can even connect your tradition, or the lessons its taught you, to Boston College at the end of your essay.
When it comes to picking a tradition, you might have one immediately jump out at you—that’s great! But if you need more help brainstorming, consider working backwards by starting with a community or identity that is important to you and identifying a tradition associated with that community. Communities can include the following:
- Racial background
- Religious communities
- School clubs
- Sports teams
- Ethnic heritage
- Immediate/extended family
- Apartment building/street block
A student whose Korean heritage is an important community to them might write about the tradition of Doljanchi—a celebration of a baby’s first birthday. Another student who really values their family could choose their annual camping trip with their cousins and grandparents. Someone whose theater community is central to their lives maybe will choose the tradition of pre-show warmups.
You could also choose the route of writing about a tradition that is personal to you. For example, maybe you read A Christmas Carol to yourself every Christmas Eve since you were 10. Or maybe you have a tradition of painting the beach by your house every season. While you can definitely go down this road and write a compelling essay, just remember the prompt wants to know how the tradition “brings people together or strengthens the bonds of those who participate.” If your tradition is solitary, you’ll probably need to focus on how it strengthens bonds—these could be with yourself, with the world around you, etc.
Once you have a tradition, you are ready to begin writing. Remember the age old college essay wisdom: show, don’t tell. Let’s look at the different of a student showing versus telling their readers about their tradition.
Showing: “The smell of buttery, slightly-burnt microwave popcorn fills my nose as I burrow deeper under the blanket my little brother and I share. Scooching myself closer to my mom, I look around and smile as the opening credits of a castle consumes the screen and the instrumental Disney music fills the room. Sunday movie night has begun.”
Telling: “My family has a tradition of watching Disney movies every Sunday night. It started as a way to get my little siblings to sit still and relax after a long weekend, but it’s now turned into a treasured ritual.”
The showing example places the reader in the tradition with the student, making us more compelled to keep reading because we are emotionally attached now. The use of sensory imagery and specific details makes a huge difference.
After you’ve fully described your tradition, you need to focus on why this is a meaningful tradition to you. Don’t use generic statements like “It’s a time for my family to come together,” or “It reminds me of the history of my culture.” Instead, keep employing the show, don’t tell strategy to let your reader see why it’s important:
“Squished between my family on the couch, I take a moment to appreciate our hour and 40 minutes where the rest of the world comes to a halt. My dad isn’t glued to his laptop answering emails, he’s laughing at Pumba. My mom isn’t shuttling the four of us around in her minivan, she’s getting teary-eyed at ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight’. My little brothers aren’t busy at soccer and tennis practice, they are here next to me. And my little sister doesn’t open up TikTok once, she’s dancing along to ‘Hakuna Matata.’”
This paragraph shows us that this student’s family is always busy, but they all stop what they are doing for movie nights. From this, we learn that they value being with their family, slowing down from the pressures of life, and enjoying the simple pleasures of a movie. That’s more than we would have learned if they just told us this tradition lets them spend time with their family.
Remember, traditions are powerful because of the meaning they hold. Really dig deep into what your tradition means for you and your community that you care about. Admissions officers will read hundreds of essays describing similar traditions, but where you can set yourself apart is sharing how the meaning of that tradition is impactful and special to you.
Option 2
The late BC theology professor, Father Michael Himes, argued that a university is not a place to which you go, but instead, a “rigorous and sustained conversation about the great questions of human existence, among the widest possible circle of the best possible conversation partners.” Who has been your most meaningful conversation partner, and what profound questions have you considered together? (400 words)
This prompt provides you with an opportunity to try your hand at storytelling. Paint a picture for the reader: who are you talking to, how often do you talk, where are you located, was this a unique conversation or an example of a typical debate between you two? The more your essay reads like a page out of a novel, the better.
You’ll want to include lines of dialogue in this essay, but don’t let the entire thing read like a text message chain. Include supplemental details like your and your partners’ inflections, your body language as you were talking, and what was happening around you. For example, this isn’t revealing much to the admissions committee:
“Mom?”
“Yes, honey?”
“I got another C.”
Versus this:
“Mom?” A timid voice squeaked out from the back of my throat, hoping to go undetected. My mom didn’t even bother to look up from the pile of papers sprawled out in front of her.
“Yes, honey?”
She sounds busy—this can wait. I’ll just tell her tomorrow (or never). But something got the better of me, and I sheepishly admitted the truth:
“I got another C.”
Beyond just the structure, it’s important to consider whom you will pick as your conversation partner. Remember, the prompt is looking for a particular conversation that challenged someone’s perspective, so don’t pick someone you always agree with. It should be someone you know well enough to recreate their side of the conversation, since you likely won’t remember what both of you said word for word.
The conversation you choose can be as serious as challenging a family member’s prejudiced ways or as lighthearted as convincing your friends why Star Wars is better than Star Trek. For this essay, the topic is not as important as how you present the conversation. But how should you present it?
A basic essay might rehash the language of the prompt, such as:
“My favorite conversation partner is my dad, because he and I love music. Sometimes, we stay up late talking about different songs from his childhood—old songs that I have never heard before. Oftentimes, he will reveal a hidden meaning behind the lyrics.”
While this answers the prompt, the response is formulaic and could be way more dynamic. Get creative! You could begin with a bold claim about your conversation partner, such as:
“My father is a good but complicated man who, as of late, seems to only appear at night.”
You could begin with a summary of what you talk about:
“When I hear the opening power chords of the Eagles’ “The Last Resort,” I hear the voice of my father. It’s important to note that my father is not Don Henley, merely a fan, yet his baritone voice narrates the hidden meaning of the lyrics, underscored by Schmit’s bass guitar.”
Or with a strong statement:
“It’s become an unspoken rule—a silent law—to never attempt to initiate a conversation with my father while he is listening to his music. We talk after an album or after a song ends. Monolithic grunts are the only acceptable verbal form of acknowledgement while listening, accompanied by a thumbs up, a fist pump through the silent air, or a mere upward curl of the lips, as if to say, ‘I like this one.’”
After one of these strong beginnings, move into some dialogue and get to a point of conflict. We don’t mean physical conflict, but rather where a disagreement in ideas is revealed, which shows competing perspectives:
“‘I don’t know, Dad. The Eagles are fine, but they’re no Led Zeppelin.’ Uh oh, wrong move. My dad’s head swiveled like an owl eyeing its prey. I braced myself for the onslaught of song titles, Grammy nominations, and band drama headed my way.
‘You’re entitled to an opinion. Just not the wrong one.’ The dangerous glint in his eye should’ve frightened me, but it only egged me on.
‘Seriously?! Stairway to Heaven is the ultimate rock song of the 70s.’
‘Ever heard of something called Hotel California?’ His hands flailed in the air, expressing his point physically.”
Notice the effect of realistic dialogue and descriptions? The reader feels like they are standing in that room watching this argument unfold. You want to draw the reader in with a conversation that feels natural and fitting for the people involved and the topic being discussed.
The admissions committee doesn’t just want to see conflict; they want to see the way you handle new ideas and approach difficult conversations. This is where you have to demonstrate how either your perspective changed or you changed the other perspective.
“After rounds of back and forth, shouting lyrics and Billboard chart numbers at each other, I came up with a better solution.
‘Ok, Dad, how about this: We’ll listen to Stairway to Heaven and Hotel California back to back and each pick something good from both songs.’
As the opening guitar chords started, I was transported. Except it wasn’t the intro to Stairway to Heaven, I know and loved—it was Hotel California! Soon, my head was bopping along to the drum kicks, and I found myself singing at the top of my lungs.
‘Welcome to the Hotel California!’ We sang in unison.”
A nice conclusion to this essay should address your or your partner’s new perspective. Maybe you learned a lesson from how you handled disagreement. Or maybe you are looking forward to your next conversation where you can prove your point once again.
Option 3
In her November 2019 TED Talk, “The Danger of a Single Story,” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi warned viewers against assigning people a “single story” through assumptions about their nationality, appearance, or background. Discuss a time when someone defined you by a single story. What challenges did this present, and how did you overcome them? (400 words)
This prompt option is similar to a “Diversity” prompt, but you aren’t limited to just discussing racial and ethnic diversity. Anyone who has been stereotyped or judged for something outside of their control before could write a compelling essay to answer this question.
Here are a few ideas of possible essays students could write about in response to the prompt:
- A student faced microaggressions because of the color of his skin
- People assumed a student was LGBTQ+ because they were part of the theater club at their school
- A girl who was called a dumb blonde felt discouraged from answering questions in her math class
- A boy’s teachers assumed he would excel because his older brother was at the top of his class
- A student was subjected to harmful stereotypes because of their religion
As you can see, there are many different avenues to take when answering this prompt. The important thing is to describe how you were defined by a single story, show the impact that had on you, and demonstrate how you overcame or fought back against your single story.
The best way to start this essay is with an anecdote. Place the reader in your shoes so we can understand what you went through. The key is to show the reader with vivid imagery:
“‘Adios, mama.’ I hung up and slipped my phone back into my bag, only to be greeted by three sneering faces when I looked up again. ‘Hablasss inglesss?’ Their American accents and teasing tone drew out the words so they were barely recognizable to a native Spanish speaker. ‘Tu estás en los Estados Unidos.’ Another boy chimed in over his friends’ snickers.”
Once you’ve established the discrimination you’ve experienced, explain the impact that it had on you. Did it mess with your performance in school because you were afraid to be criticized for your accent when you answered a question? Did you feel insecure about your looks, and that made you try new hairstyles and outfits until you barely recognized yourself anymore? Did you stop participating in an activity you loved and feel unfulfilled?
It’s really important to go a step beyond the comments and treatments you received from others and explore how you were emotionally and mentally impacted by being siloed into a single story. This is where the depth of your essay will come from and what will distinguish it as either strong or weak.
While this essay does handle challenging topics, it’s not meant to be a depressing recount of discrimination you’ve faced; it’s meant to demonstrate your resilience and ability to overcome a difficult situation. Save at least half of your essay to tell the story of how you fought back and overcame the challenges of being assigned a single story.
Be as detailed as possible when discussing how you overcame your single story. The admissions committee is curious to see your methods (did you ignore and rise above the comments or respond and deny them) and your thought processes (what was your motivation behind standing up for yourself, was there a final straw that pushed you over the edge, did you turn to others for advice or support, etc).
Finally, it’s a good idea to include self-reflection in this type of essay. Consider some of these questions to guide your reflection: How is your unique background an asset? How has your personality been shaped by your experiences? Are you still fighting being assigned a single story? How can you prevent this from happening in the future?
By reflecting on your diversity, you will demonstrate your ability to think critically and show the admissions committee the unique perspective you’ll bring to the school.
Option 4
Boston College’s Jesuit mission highlights “the three Be’s”: be attentive, be reflective, be loving – core to Jesuit education (see A Pocket Guide to Jesuit Education). If you could add a fourth “Be,” what would it be and why? How would this new value support your personal development and enrich the BC community? (400 words)
For this prompt, BC wants to know what your core values are. They aren’t testing your ability to invent a catchy phrase. Rather, Boston College wants you to reflect on your worldview, exhibit self-reflection, and explain how your guiding principle will translate into action on campus.
Before you begin brainstorming, here are a couple of things to avoid. Firstly, don’t choose something too generic like “be kind” or “be respectful”. Additionally, make sure your fourth value doesn’t overlap with the three BC already has. For example, you might want to choose “be present” because you believe it’s important to live in the moment, however that is too closely related to “be attentive.”
You might find it helpful to ask yourself the following brainstorming questions to help determine a good value for this essay:
- What core value guides your decisions or motivates you when life is challenging?
- Is there a mantra or quote you live by that could emulate a “be” statement?
- Has a personal experience—volunteering, leading, failing, caring for someone, etc.—taught you a value you now carry into everything?
- How would living this value make you a stronger learner, friend, or leader at BC?
Remember, you shouldn’t pick a value out of thin air because it sounds catchy. As with any good college essay, you want to incorporate your personal experiences and anecdotes, so you need to choose something that ties back to your life in a practical way that you can talk about. Let’s look at some examples of how students could do that.
- “Be Inquisitive”: Sofia is constantly asking questions about the world around her. How do our tastebuds detect flavors? Why is world peace so hard to achieve? Who decides when one era of history ends and another begins? Her curious nature has led her to discover so much about the world, herself, and those around her. She’ll bring this value to BC in her academic work creating her own Independent Major, but also inspire her friends and classmates to ask questions to understand each other more.
- “Be Courageous”: Ethan overcame a severe fear of public speaking because he felt passionate about offering healthier options in his school cafeteria, but he could only make change if he ran for student government and gave presentations to the school board. To him, courage is speaking up for what matters even when it’s uncomfortable. At BC, he will continue to “be courageous” when he runs for Undergraduate Government of Boston College to speak up for issues his classmates care about.
- “Be Vulnerable”: Amara never told anyone that she was gay and the loneliness used to eat at her. One day, she opened up to her best friend, and while the moment was terrifying, her friend immediately accepted and supported her and Amara discovered being vulnerable made her less lonely. At BC, she will continue to be vulnerable, answering questions in class even when she isn’t 100% sure the answer, and most importantly, by joining the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Community at BC.
As these examples demonstrate, you want to pick a value that serves as a bridge between sharing your past experiences and the future ones you will create at BC. If you can do that, you are in good hands.
Option 5 (Human-Centered Engineering (HCE) Applicants only)
One goal of a Jesuit education is to prepare students to serve the Common Good. Human-Centered Engineering at Boston College integrates technical knowledge, creativity, and a humanistic perspective to address societal challenges and opportunities. What societal problems are important to you, and how will you use your HCE education to solve them? (400 words)
In this essay, your primary goal is to explain how you will use Boston College’s engineering education to “serve the Common Good” (i.e., address issues in society). In essence, this prompt is a variation on the “Why This College/Program?” essay.
One important piece of advice is to remember that this essay is about you and the program. Don’t just name aspects of the program you’re excited about; make sure you tie them into your story, values, aspirations, or other qualities.
There’s a lot to consider in this essay, but don’t be intimidated! Dedicating a healthy amount of time to brainstorming and planning will make your essay much stronger. Before you begin to tackle this multifaceted prompt, remember that the structure of your essay doesn’t have to mirror the order in which you brainstorm.
Start by familiarizing yourself with the goals and requirements of the program. During the brainstorming stage, pick several specific features of the program that catch your interest: perhaps the idea of working with stakeholder groups on design solutions appeals to your creative quest to solve real-world problems. Or, maybe the idea of a weekly reflection on the ethics of engineering strikes you as an important practice for keeping yourself accountable to a humanistic perspective. You’ll come back to these components of the program once you’ve identified a central problem around which to base your essay.
Next, think about your goals in conjunction with engineering–this is the first stage of framing that central problem for your essay. Why are you interested in engineering, from a human-impact perspective? What broad human issues do you find most urgent? Although the prompt doesn’t ask you to pick just one societal challenge or opportunity to address in your essay, we advise you to choose one central theme around which to base your essay. Boston College’s Human-Centered Engineering program aims to put human concerns at the center of its training.
To get a better understanding of the program’s objectives, it can help to consider what this program strives not to be (and, by extension, what you should focus on avoiding or going beyond in your essay). One page on the Human-Centered Engineering website highlights a couple of contrasting concepts on engineering’s objectives:
- “The engineers of the future will be asked to do more than build bridges. We’re educating innovative thinkers whose broad knowledge and passion for helping others will set them apart in whatever career they pursue.” Boston College’s engineering program strives to address issues that have a greater human impact than functional design.
- “This is not engineering for engineering’s sake—this is engineering for impact.” As a graduate of the program, you’re not just inheriting engineering endeavors passed down for generations. You’re innovating and creating solutions to problems that today’s engineers might not yet know how to approach–hence the emphasis on creativity and humanistic perspective.
At this point, you should identify a pressing global or community-based human problem you’d like to address. This should be the focus of your brainstorming efforts. Here are a few things to consider when choosing a problem to discuss:
- Personal impact. Your essay will be stronger and much more cohesive if you choose a topic that has affected you or a community you’re part of. For example, if your family owned a farm in Texas, where droughts are a recurring issue, you might be passionate about finding engineering solutions to the issue of water conservation. By framing the global issue of water shortage around your family’s experience, you can more effectively argue for the human impact of the issue.
- Breadth. You should choose an example that is broad enough to fall into the category of “societal challenge,” but not too broad. If you choose something like “world peace,” you will come across as out of touch with the goals of the program. If your first thought was world peace, or some other broad human problem, don’t despair, though! Focus on finding a more specific concern within that broad context. So instead of world peace, think about a concrete problem that causes wars and disputes between human communities, like internet access. Then you can frame this issue as worldwide connectivity and access to technology. You don’t need to know all the details of your solution’s mechanism—that’s the purpose of your education—but your central problem should lend itself to an interdisciplinary, engineering-based solution.
- Current Global Crises. The Human-Centered Engineering website gives you a few ideas for relevant human problems: environment (their example being access to clean water), health (with exposure to air pollution as an example), and energy (exemplified by a shift to renewable energy). It would be a good idea to choose a more specific concern within one of these sectors, but if you have a great idea that isn’t related to any of these ideas, that’s okay! The more creative and specific your idea, the better.
Once you’ve chosen a central problem, go back to the concrete aspects of Boston College’s program that you found most noteworthy. How can these features support your goals? You will probably need to go back to the program website and find some more specific resources that will help you achieve your goals.
Let’s take access to technology and connectivity as our example. You might point out that the liberal arts core will help you gain empathy and perspective on the issue; there is an abundance of literature and psychological studies on how being left behind technologically creates tensions and war.
You might also argue that the weekly ethical reflections will help you consider the human needs that you can address within the issue of access to technology—why should we endeavor to bring up-to-date technology across the globe?
Lastly, the design-thinking modules with stakeholders will help you learn to work with affected parties to create reliable solutions, and this ability to work with stakeholders means you can customize access to technology based on location and connectivity needs.
Note that the prompt mentions how the program “strives to develop people who will integrate technical knowledge, creativity, and a humanistic perspective” to societal problems. Make sure you address how the program will help you develop each of these qualities when it comes to addressing the societal problem you’ve chosen.
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